A letter from Sumatra: 1993-part VII

The floor of the houses are made of 3 inch diameter bamboo poles, tied to longer frame-poles. When they have any garbage, banana leaves, for example, they simply drop it through the cracks between the poles, for the pigs to eat, a very convenient way of recycling. You have to get used to walking at perpendicular angles to the poles, and not going along them. One morning my foot went through a crack and I powered through all the way to my groin area.

During the hiking it was so obvious why the natives dress like they do. Bare feet are so much better for mud and balancing, and they were totally comfortable not using too much energy. We on the the other hand were ploughing through the mud, slipping off of poles that were already submerged, and sweating like a sauna. I’ve had hotter days in Santa Barbara, but it’s so humid, my shirt was totally drenched in one hour, the whole shirt including the arms!

On our last day of hiking, we took one of the natives, Amerkeri, with us and he showed us how he gets coconuts. Its totally amazing how these people climb. They cut small dents in the tree with a machette, and almost run up it. Gara ran up a curving tree that was about 35ft high and ripped off 3 coconuts. Amerkeri climbed up a tree which was straight up, and about 50 ft, before hacking down 5 coconuts with his machette. We all had fresh coconut milk to drink and coconut to eat. The milk sometimes tastes almost carbonated.

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